Portfolio overhaul + pre-midyear review

Portfolio site WIP. It's already live, but I am still actively updating it.

It's amazing what can happen in a week.

Last Sunday, in my regular Instagram Stories Q&A series, I answered a question about portfolios and how to craft one that will get you the jobs you want to get. While I typed up my response I kept thinking if my portfolio reflected the advice I was giving. It was updated and it housed projects that I loved working on for the past couple of years, but somehow it was still not up to par. I posted my answer in the morning, and after lunch I was already so engrossed in a spontaneous portfolio revamp. All I really wanted to do was to see if another theme would look good with my content, but once I found a new theme, I couldn't stop.

The only image I have of my old site layout. I was so excited for the change I forgot to save photos for posterity hahahuhu

That same night I received an email that a Make Art That Sells online class I was enrolled in was bound to start the very next day. The name of the class? Portfolio Review Live. It's a class where famed illustration agent, Lilla Rogers, would give tips on how to better represent yourself as an artist through your online portfolio. I kinda forgot that I signed up for it, but I was really happy to get help from the professionals.

Monday rolled in and I kept fiddling with my site, selecting fonts and injecting CSS codes to change the padding between images (things I never really thought about in real life). I decided to skip the first day of Portfolio Review Live, which was slated for 12 midnight local time (the grandma in me chose to sleep), but then as fate would have it, I woke up at 12:25 for no reason and went to class anyway. I learned a lot about how an art director or agent would view an artist's site, but I forced myself to sleep even though I was really excited to work on my own site improvements.

Fast forward to tonight. I've been resizing images, adding tags and categories, making mock-ups, and writing content for my portfolio site since 3pm (it's 11pm now). It's already a full day's work but I am only about 65% done. I have a checklist of things I still need to do and add, and I have yet to tick off anything. It's still a long road ahead, but I am taking this short writing break to share with you that even I am surprised at the dedication I have for this project.

You see, I've never been this ~obsessed~ about my portfolio. This is the first time I am truly making an effort to make it pretty and cohesive and representative of me. I have a purpose for it now, as opposed to just having it exist. (I guess this reflection is just appropriate as we're nearing the midpoint of the year.) I've never been this purposeful about my art. I used to always joke that I stumbled into art-making and entrepreneurship because I am stubborn and cannot work for someone else. But in reality it's my big dream: to make people smile with my art and hopefully make a living off it. When I quit my last day job, I achieved that dream, but that left me feeling lost. What now? What's next?

Now I feel like I know the answer to those questions. I have found my next big dream, and updating this space is one of the first steps I need to make in order to get the ball rolling. My friend Ria told me a couple of days back that all "coincidences" around my portfolio overhaul is the universe's way of sending me all the help I need to accomplish my goals. It really made my day when she said that because this is the first time in a while that I feel confident in my direction. I am not aimlessly floating anymore.